SIMPLE LINEAR MARKS

Some bone fragments, a clam shell and a flint scraper decorated with graphic patterns of limited workmanship, to simple lines or notches.

Subject

Abstract

Category

Mobiliare

Raw material

Stone

Technique

Engraving

Layer

epigravettian layer

Chronology

-

Item code

-

Relative chronology

Final Epigravettian

It was the end of the last glacial period, between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago, that brought the Palaeolithic to a close. Italy, like other European areas, witnessed the formation of well-defined regional areas, with elements of heterogeneity within the lithic production. Behavioural practices that weren't by nature utilitarian – that is to say those associated with funerary practices and artistic experience – occurred cross-regionally.

The Franco-Cantabrian style began to fade out from artistic productions. No longer adopted in the South, it left traces in the Centre and the North of Italy, where echoes of the transalpine tradition persisted, filtered through the expanding Mediterranean style. In the final two millennia, this language assumed a more synthetic and abstract character, with especially geometric and linear graphic productions.